


LooNEY_DAC's Giant Furball, er, Fanfic

by LooNEY_DAC



Category: Alien Series, Predator Series, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Terminator (Movies), The Incredible Hulk (TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi-Crossover, Very AU, prepare to be confused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8292121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LooNEY_DAC/pseuds/LooNEY_DAC
Summary: A Crossover of asinine dimensions between multiple AUs. See the Introduction for more details.





	1. Introduction

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

So. This will be my first work posted on AO3, so I decided to repost a revised version of my very first fanfic, originally posted over at the Spider-Man Crawlspace. With any luck, I'll actually finish it this time.

And now, I'll quote myself from my old intro to the story:

"I call this my Giant Furball because I’m bringing in characters and antagonists from many, many continuities and essentially welding them together. These continuities include but are NOT limited to: the 90s animated series (Earth-92131), Earth-691, the live-action Hulk TV show (Earth-400005), the Alien & Predator movie franchises (excluding Expanded Universe material), the Terminator franchise, and the Nolan-verse Batman.

"Wow. What a lot of stuff to sew together. Wait, there’s more?

"I’m also bringing in versions of Spider-Man characters from several ‘What If?’-style proto-fanfics I had under development, whose differentials I’ll explain in the text. With this semi-impossible mandate, we shall begin. Again.

"So, here goes... I’ll post more parts of the story as I write them.

"P.S. Spidey will appear-- be patient."

I hope you'll come along for the ride!


	2. Prologue

Prologue

Somewhere in the furthest murky depths of the Unfathomable, two ancient Forces began to move. At first, each Force was unaware of the other, but that was not to last. Yes, two Forces there were, a Male and a Female, Yin and Yang, as it had been since the beginning. Neither Force would risk an open trial of strength against strength, once they were known to each other; as yet, they were too evenly matched for either Force to prevail. So, instead, each Force reached itself out from the Unfathomable and perused the Everyday closely, in search of suitable proxies. In the end, Champions were chosen: the Red Queen and the Survivor - and the Red Queen was obviously the stronger.

One corner of the Everyday was chosen as the arena, and the Champions were put into place that the Forces might finally come to grips.

The Red Queen struck out at the Survivor, but even in that first encounter he proved himself worthy of his sobriquet, and far and away the wilier of the two. Stung and humiliated by his easy repulse of her attack, the Red Queen took a page from her patron’s book and sought out more, and more capable, proxies of her own, crafting a plan that would see the Survivor broken. But she plotted in vain.

Divining the Red Queen’s intent, the Survivor wove plans of his own, setting into furious motion the wheels of destiny. When these opposing plans collided, the resulting blow utterly devastated the arena, completely destroying both Champions with their proxies and rippling out in incomprehensibly mighty waves that shook the very core of the Unfathomable itself--and the Forces were pleased.

For twelve cycles this went on: the Red Queen’s armies attacked the Survivor and his allies, and both sides were wiped out in the battle. Time and again, the two Forces resurrected their Champions, that the struggle might go on for ever, as it must.

Then, somehow, something was altered.

A new Red Queen and a new Survivor had been selected; a new Arena had been prepared for their battle. The stage was set for yet another cycle... but something else was ready, as well.

Such were the Forces which brought about the tale now to be told; such were the Champions who shaped it. All that follows came about through the actions of one or the other of them.


	3. Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in this version of the Alien movie universe, the Authority's a galactic version of the Gestapo or the KGB.
> 
> A _Dramatis Personae_ list will be in the endnotes.

Part 1

In the ruins of Los Angeles, California  
After Judgment Day

The naked endoskeleton loomed before her, the rictus it wore less a parody of a smile than an obscenity not unlike a primordial nightmare, its glowing red optical sensors scanning from side to side in an attempt to locate its lost quarry: her. After it had flung her across the room, it had come after her in a leisurely enough manner that she’d had time to hide.

It saw her, locking on with inhuman precision. It was just bending to grab her, its eerily skull-like cranium growing in her narrow field of view until the chrome death’s head filled her every perception. Then, just as she gave herself up for lost, the grinning gargoyle suddenly retreated, incredibly quickly. In fact, the cyborg’s head flew backwards so quickly that it came off of its powerful torso in a shower of arcs and sparks.

She ventured a glance beyond the cybernetic corpse of her hunter, and beheld a sight unthinkable. A large man, a true hulk, in fact, stood a few feet from her hiding place; in fact, he was large enough to be a T-800 clothed in flesh, but for the next strange thing she noticed about him: he was green, almost glowing with the pale hue in the dim light. But what nearly stopped her rapidly pounding heart altogether was what he held. Completely enveloped in one massive hand was the cranium so recently dislocated from her would-be attacker; the way he held the slightly crumpled metal made it obvious he’d simply ripped it from the killing machine while it was preoccupied with eliminating her.

“Alas, poor Yorick, eh?” The quiet voice was oddly cultured, and as it came from behind her rather than the direction in which she was gaping, she was fairly certain it didn’t belong to the huge man. She turned and found another man, this one normally sized, looking back at her rescuer, and then at her. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said in that same quiet, cultured voice. His hair was mostly gray with a few stubborn reminders of its original brown threading though it, and his face was thin, heavily lined and careworn. “I’m Jack McGee. What’s your name?”

She tried to say something, but all that came out was, “He’s green.”

McGee smiled gently, agreeing, “He is, indeed.”

\--

A Universe Away  
500 years after the Destruction of the Nostromo

Planet CNOC-355717 looked close enough to any of a thousand like it that Massey had seen from orbit in his years of spacing that he neither could nor, truth be told, desired to differentiate them any more. It was just another drop point among the great mass of pick/drop points in his life, with nothing memorable about it at all. For this reason alone, the space destroyer was able to intercept them before he noticed it.

The Authority liked to randomly halt tramp ships like Massey’s, search them from top to bottom, and either delay transit so the shipment was ruined or impound ship, cargo and crew just to remind the customers of who precisely ran this galaxy, but their agents usually could be persuaded otherwise, providing you knew how to deal with them, as Massey did.

There was no battle, any more than there would have been between a tramp freighter and a battleship back in WWII. Instead, Massey “invited” a party of Colonial Marines aboard to “inspect” ship and cargo before the drop. They accepted the “invitation”, and went about their business, poking through every nook and cranny they could find, and not finding anything objectionable. Or, at least, so they would tell their superiors, who were too busy admiring Massey’s “gift” of well-aged brandy to notice their troops’ odd tipsiness.

An orbital cargo drop was the most cost-effective way to deliver supplies of a non-volatile nature to a given minor colony like the one on CNOC-355717. It also had the distinct advantage that buyer and supplier never actually met. Now, given the types of people that tended to colonize marginal worlds like CNOC-355717, this advantage became even more weighty.

\--

In the Ruins of LA  
Flashback to several hours before section 1  
Below Ground

The very first thing David Banner saw when he awoke was McGee staring back at him.

For a moment, he couldn’t speak or even think. McGee? What was McGee doing here? For that matter, what was he doing here? Where was here, anyway?

Deliberately, he went through the mental exercises he had learned in San Francisco all those years ago. In another moment, he might have, as he grimly termed it, “Hulked out”--become the Hulk.

He reopened his eyes. He was in a large room, sitting up on a strange platform, and he was dressed in a hospital gown, as was McGee, who continued to stare silently at him. After a while, McGee smiled without humor.

“Four years of searching, and it all comes down to a simple, ‘Dr Banner, I presume?’” He laughed rather bitterly. “You know, they put us side-by-side here in this complex? It has to be fate, because I certainly didn’t ask to be frozen and thawed like a TV dinner.”

“I... I was dead,” Banner said slowly.

“We both were,” McGee said sharply. “I bought it on assignment, in a street fight in Tijuana. I was supposed to get the scoop on the newest drug wars there, but I got a bellyful of lead instead. As for you, from what I see here--” he moved aside to reveal a table, one hand gesturing at a yellowed stack of newsprint atop it “--you, or rather, the Hulk took a header off of a helicopter. My paper, the National Register, was kind enough to preserve us both for all eternity in this cryogenics facility.”

“So what happened?” Banner asked gently.

“I wish I knew,” McGee answered. “I woke up two days ago, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of anyone in this place. I’m not even sure how long we were on ice, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

Banner glanced around. The room was filled with cryo-tubes like the one he’d just left, but only his and one other were open.

“Some were never used at all,” McGee said, answering Banner’s unspoken question. “The others... Well, let’s just say that by some sad irony, we’re the only survivors.”

The only survivors of a frozen crypt. Banner shuddered.

They contemplated each other in silence for a while. Eventually, though, his stomach prompted him to ask, “Is there anything to eat?”

“Oh, yeah,” said McGee, gesturing listlessly. “This place is loaded with all kinds of stuff.” His voice comported with the general air of exhaustion emanating from him. “There’s food, weapons... everything. This facility looks like it was abandoned about twenty years ago, and then some kind of survivalist group took it over a few years back. They stocked up on everything you’d need to survive the End of Days, and then just... vanished. I’ve been poking around all over this place, but I can’t find a trace of them.”

\--

Miles Away  
The Survivor’s Lair

“...I can’t find a trace of them.” McGee’s words echoed tinnily from the speaker beneath the monitor that imaged him.

“Of course you can’t, Jack, seeing as how they never existed in the first place,” the Survivor murmured in response. “Not that you know that.”

As the scene between the two comrades in supposedly “accidental” reanimation unfolded on the one monitor, other monitors observed the unfolding of certain other portions of the Survivor’s grand design, prompting him to smile contentedly. So far, all was going exactly as he had planned it to, not that that would continue for much longer. While it lasted, though, he was determined to enjoy it.

His opponent was all the wilier for the many times he’d already beaten her; she wouldn’t be vanquished anew without a battle for the ages. Oh, to finally overcome her! Such a victory would finally, incontrovertibly evince his mental supremacy!

The Survivor came back to himself with a convulsive shudder. His opponent? He’d... beaten... her? His enemy, and the enemy of humanity itself, was Skynet, a foe decidedly still to be defeated, and without gender. His dreams were getting weirder and weirder all the time.

For now, though, he needed to concentrate on finding and bringing in the next batch of champions for the side of humanity; the Resistance was all well and good, but in order to break the Titans of Machine-kind, humanity needed the aid of Titans of Mankind, Demigods of Flesh to triumph over mere metal. He must find them, and he must find them soon. Everything depended on that fact.

A great engine churned into life at the Survivor’s command, an engine designed by Man and built by Man; and in the service of Man, its energies were let loose...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dramatis Personae_ (in order of appearance):
> 
> Unnamed T-800 series Terminator (from the Terminator movie series)  
> (OC) Lacey Kane, TechCom Resistance Fighter (same)  
> David Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk (from the eponymous 1970s TV show)  
> Jack McGee (same)  
> (OC) Massey, tramp spaceship operator (from the Alien movie series)  
> (OC) The Survivor... of whom more shall be forthcoming


	4. Part 1A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there will be a _Dramatis Personae_ list in the endnotes.

Part 1A

Just Outside the Colony on the Surface of CNOC-355717

The woman stood outside the dome, scanning the skies for the cargo pod’s trail. By design, it would emit a bright vermillion plume as it descended, allowing easy identification and tracking. This pod, though cheaply retrofitted for reuse after reuse, proved itself yet again, pluming, plunging and bouncing to a stop on the barren plain about five miles from the dome.

He was at his desk when the woman came to alert him about the successful drop. Sometimes she thought he was only truly alive when he was at that desk: anywhere else she saw him, he was nearly catatonic. Of course, he was by far the oldest of them all; possibly older than all of the rest of them put together.

He’d adopted the name ‘Gonzalo of Fenris’ as his cognomen amongst them, which they all thought appropriate. As he was later to put it, though, “The sycophantic little boogers would probably have approved of me calling myself Beelzebub McDevlin, or Bozo the Clown. That’s how scared they are of me.” And yes, he actually used the word ‘boogers’.

Retrieving the pod was a routine they’d practiced many times by now; the colony had been established perhaps five or ten years prior, and though the original colonists had all accepted ‘Gonzalo’s’ buy-out offer, the quarterly drops continued as they had from the beginning. Nothing even hinted that this pod retrieval might be any different than all the others.

\--

A Room with a Racetrack Motif  
Neither Here nor There

The Red Queen looked closely at the huge table upon which her just-begun battle was laid out in miniature, pondering her foe’s opening moves. Should she switch strategies, or stay the course she’d set? Better by far to stay the course, she eventually decided. Almost all of her pieces were in their proper places, and the very few that weren’t would be ready soon.

This fighting incognito business was all well and good, but before she shed herself and assumed her ‘street ID’, she was going to make doubly sure of her eventual triumph. It was only common sense.

All right, there were the traps; there the snares; some pitfalls and a few more snares clustered over here; and finally, the Ultimate Great Challenge. The set-pieces were perfect. Yes, and, for their part, each of her opponent’s pawns would face a nasty surprise from her henchbeasts ahead, also.

Had she checked and re-checked everything she needed to? The Red Queen looked down at her frightfully enormous list. Pawns, set-pieces, pre-positioning, enemy forces, pistachio ice cream... Oooh! Ice cream! Could she make a trap from that? A little research showed the Red Queen that it was, in fact, too late. Blast.

Could she reasonably put off her forthcoming diminishing any longer? Alas, no, she could not. The teleporter pinged in readiness and, at her prompting, whisked her off to her other lair: the Palace of Madness.

\--

Another Part of CNOC-355717

Humans have been charting the stars for thousands of years. At first, they gave each object or constellation they saw a name: Aldebaran, Arcturus, Betelgeuse, Deneb, Cygnus, and many others. Later, as they found more and ever more galaxies, clusters, nebulae, stars and planets, they used more and ever more obscure numerating and cataloguing systems to designate which particular bit of matter whirling away through space they happened to be referring to at the moment. The Catalogue Nouvelle des Objets Celestials was one of these, and the planet it listed as #355717 was more or less typical of its listings.

As was typical of planets its distance from Earth and in its era of discovery, this planet had only one colony, laid out fairly typically. As previously stated, the colonists maintained a typical resupply schedule of one orbital pod dropped quarterly, but there was something atypical about Massey’s last drop.

All unnoticed, a second, much smaller pod had entered the atmosphere at about the same time as the one Massey had dropped for the colonists. It left no plume, also by design, and its course both tried to minimize its entry trail and set it down over by the colony’s outlying nuclear facility, which was, typically, detached and, even more typically, set quite a distance from the actual habitats themselves.

Of course, this colony and its nuclear facility were anything but typical; thus the pod... and some other visitors, though from another direction than up.

\--

The young woman looked like she’d been run over by a truck a few times, and the sight of the Hulk in all his glory wasn’t helping. McGee tried again to find out her name, but she was too shell-shocked to answer, so he led her around a pile of rubble, where she couldn’t gawk at the Hulk anymore, in the hope that both might calm down more quickly. Sure enough, when McGee looked back, the Hulk was seated.

A minute or so later, Banner crept cautiously around the wreckage. McGee tersely brought him up to speed, and Banner came over to examine the woman. McGee belatedly recalled Banner was, in fact, a physician, unlike so many of the doctors he’d interviewed over the years, so McGee quietly took up his role as the silent but watchful observer again.

It was a revelation. Banner had one of the best bedside manners McGee had ever seen, and he had covered quite a few whilst investigating malpractice allegations around the country. After as swift and yet as comprehensive an exam as the woman would allow, Banner finally got her to open up about who she was.

“I’m Lacey Kane,” she said, very softly, her wide emerald eyes constantly darting around nervously. “We can’t stay here; there’ll be more of them coming.”

“Those robots?” McGee asked, carefully pitching his voice like hers.

She nodded jerkily. “You two need to come with me.”

With that, the newly formed trio began their long journey...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dramatis Personae_ (in order of appearance):
> 
> (OC) Unnamed (as yet) Female Colonist of CNOC-355717 (from the Alien movie series)  
> (OC) 'Gonzalo of Fenris', male leader of CNOC-355717 colonists (same)  
> (OC) The Red Queen... of whom more will be revealed later  
> (OC) Lacey Kane, TechCom Resistance Fighter (from the Terminator movie series)  
> Jack McGee (from the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show)  
> David Bruce Banner, the Incredible Hulk (same)


	5. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per usual, there will be a _Dramatis Personae_ list in the endnotes.

Part 2

Project Wayne command ship  
Approaching Planet CNOC-355717 from outsystem  
Seven galactic standard days after the events of Part 1A

“I’m really starting to regret letting you talk me into this... this asinine project, General.” Simms was as nervous as Elite Bodyguard Corporal deVries had ever seen him; he kept running one finger around his collar like he thought it meant to strangle him, and his brow glistened with sweat though the observation gallery was maintained at a cool 15C. “Especially after what happened to the last one like it.” Simms shivered at the fiasco the last trials had been.

“Perez was an idiot,” General Slater said coldly. “A ship like the Auriga should never have been chosen for his Xenomorph experiments; very nearly everything that went wrong was due to that initial, disastrous error.”

“ ‘Very nearly’, General?” Simms growled in response. DeVries was pretty sure by now of just how much the politician loathed the general, and vice versa, but now Simms seemed to have reached a new level of malevolence. DeVries saw the other guards tense, their hands subtly moving into weapons-drawing poses, just as he had.

“No idiot makes only one mistake,” Slater replied, still calmly. “The selection of the Auriga was simply the largest and most obvious mistake Perez made.”

“Just as this is simply the largest and most obvious mistake you have made in this fool’s errand, and I’m through being your civilian patsy!” Simms’ already squeaky voice got higher with each syllable, finally cracking and rebounding like a hormonal teenager’s at the end.

The General, by contrast, kept every word laced with ice. “Ever since the Synthetics rebelled and vanished, we, by which I mean you, have perpetually worried about the possibility, and possible consequences, of their return. That, and that alone, influenced you to support my endeavors, not any smooth eloquence or financial incentive on my part. Do the Synthetics and their return no longer trouble you?”

“Your ‘endeavors’, as you so smoothly put it, have reached the point where they concern me far more than the Synthetics, and with good reason!” Simms pointed out the window to the shrouded figure below. “Can you truly tell me that that thing will never be a threat to us?”

General Slater slowly walked over to the immense, transparent sheet of plexiglass that stretched from floor to ceiling and, utterly silent, looked out upon the fruits of his labors below for a very long time.

Simms’ patience, already threadbare, snapped. “Well?” he practically roared at the contemplative general still watching.

At last, General Slater responded. “I think,” he said in the same measured tones he’d been using throughout the conversation, “that if you had truly examined our reports and logs as thoroughly as you claimed earlier that you had, that you would be as assured as I am that, should any problems of any sort arise at any point in our program whatsoever, our quite comprehensive contingency plans will not fail to fulfill their purpose.”

\--

Elsewhere in the command ship

The man awoke, screaming, as he always did when awakening. He wasn’t quite sure why he always screamed as he awakened, but the vague cobwebs of night terrors usually haunted his mind for hours afterwards. All in all, it was most troublesome to the man.

He was still in the cubical room, fifteen feet to a side, that he had awoken in for the last one hundred twenty-seven days. Before that point, he could remember nothing with any certainty. After his awakening, his induction and retraining filled his time.

They had brought him back because he had once been the greatest combat rescue leader their world had ever produced. He knew they were lying. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew, but he did. On the other hand, retrieving trapped and/or wounded soldiers and civilians from dire peril (‘the helpless must be protected,’ a whisper echoed through his mind) seemed more right than not to him, so he was playing along for now.

He got up and began his customary ablutions after a quick hundred pushups or so. As he washed up, he studied his face in the small mirror above the equally diminutive sink and wondered who he truly was. Sometimes he had flashes of living in what felt like a palace, surrounded by beautiful people in fine clothes, with music in the background and a kingly feast being passed about by tray-laden waiters. Other times, the flashes were of fighting, brutal hand-to-hand combat in shadow and darkness against thugs who would gladly see him dead at their feet.

The two visions of himself, the warrior and the aristocrat, felt quite incompatible, and, in his free time, he kept wondering which was the true vision of his old life. Sometimes, he saw faces instead: a kind, wise old face he thought must be his grandfather--not his father, most definitely; a slew of beautiful women, one after another; a maniacal clown from Jung’s darkest nightmares; and always, always, a cowled, barely-lit figure in shades of black, bearing the symbol of his deepest fear.

Who had he been, really, before all of this began?

What did all of his various dreams, visions, and half-memories really mean, in truth?

But for now, his questions must rest. The muster awaited him in the training room, and he shouldn’t be late.

\--

The Colony on CNOC-355717  
More or less (relatively) concurrent with the prior sections’ events

“Sir?”

‘Gonzalo’ was still (or again? He lost track so easily nowadays...) sitting at his desk, poring over his plans one more time, when his visitor hesitantly announced herself. “It’s all right,” he told his chief lieutenant. “What’s the problem?”

The hesitant look on her face was replaced by perplexity. “We found another Big Monster, but it’s only half there.”

He looked at her askance, thinking he hadn’t heard what she’d said quite correctly. “What?”

“Something killed, skinned and... and... partially de-boned a Big Monster we found on the South Ranges,” she explained, stammering a little over the “de-boned” part. “It’s just... odd.”

The news had clearly disturbed her; she was blinking rapidly and nearly shaking in her confusion, unlike her usual equipoise. He kept his tone calm. “It was probably some predator that got interrupted mid-kill. We really have no idea what the flora and fauna of this world are outside of our little corner here; this might be an everyday occurrence beyond the perimeter fences.”

“But why would it show up at such a critical time?” she asked in perplexity.

‘Gonzalo’ smiled a gentle smile and softly told her, “Perversity.”

“What do you mean, sir?” Now she was well and truly out of her depth.

He sighed in resignation. “Go to the mainframe and look up Finagle’s Imp for me. Tomorrow, come back here and give me a full report.”

\--

On final approach to Planet CNOC-355717 from outsystem  
(in a completely different direction from the Project Wayne command ship)

Massey blinked awake in surprise. He must have dozed off in his chair, unusually enough. Well, the ship was far enough along on its journey not to need his constant attention, so a nap wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe he should try to get some more tube time in before he reached CNOC-355717; he felt kind of achy, like he had a bad cold or maybe the flu, and rather hungry, too. The colonists were actually letting him land this time, for a super-special pick-up, and if there was anything he didn’t want, it was to greet these recluses with a hearty bout of sneezes.

He’d had some ripping odd dreams while he was asleep, too: one of spinning around in leotard and tutu while a demonic crocodile played the bagpipes; one of swimming through an endless sea of curried custard with a talking melon; and one of dreadlocked, shadowy figures strapping him onto a table next to some weird vase-like thing while a witch cackled in the background--

Massey shook himself awake again. Yes, he definitely needed some serious tube time if he was to face his erstwhile employers, and a good meal. As he slowly swiveled his somewhat reluctant control chair to let himself out of the cockpit, his left foot knocked some weird, mangled piece of rubber tubing under the console...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part III:  
>  _Dramatis Personae_ (in order of appearance):
> 
> (OC) Simms, politician and member of the Authority (from the Alien movie series)  
> (OC) deVries, Corporal, Colonial Marines (same); Elite Bodyguard to  
> (OC) Slater, General, Colonial Marines; military head of Project Wayne (same)  
> Unnamed (as yet, but you might guess it) Male Subject of Project Wayne (SPOILER)  
> (OC) Unnamed (as yet) Female Colonist of CNOC-355717 (from the Alien movie series)  
> (OC) 'Gonzalo of Fenris', male leader of CNOC-355717 colonists (same)  
> (OC) Massey, tramp spaceship operator (same)


	6. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Per usual, there will be a _Dramatis Personae_ list in the endnotes.

Part 3

Earth-691  
2006: the Day the Final Hero Fell  
Queens

The machines were all around him, moving through the ruins of the once-great city. Every so often, a machine would stop to blast at some stray spike on its sensors, but their quarry was too well-versed in this kind of fight to spook. He’d been fighting them for almost five years now, and he would fight them until he took his last breath.

It would all be over soon, one way or another. The Last Hero Standing, the “Friendly Neighborhood” Spider-Man of older and better days, readied what increasingly was feeling like it would be his final attack on the hated invaders. Everything the Hero could salvage was ready to go at his command: three (OK, two and a half) Octo-bots, Nick Fury’s (mostly) functional Life Model Decoy using scavenged Goblin weaponry, two Doombots, and the last Iron Monstrosity he could cobble together from what was left of the Stark hideouts. All these, and a few other surprises, were waiting for his signal to fling themselves against the hated Martian tripods.

The Hero set his forces in motion and waited with arachnid patience as the Martians brought more and more of their tripods into the battle, the Last Battle for Queens. When they’d committed all their rapid response forces, he moved, clothed not in his red-and-blues, nor even the black costume, but a rebuilt and thoroughly enhanced Spider-Armor. His target was their main base in mid-town Manhattan, where their food stocks were.

They never saw him coming. At most, a watcher would have seen a silver blur smash through the base’s outer perimeter and into the holding compound... the empty holding compound. The roof opened, exposing another dozen tripods or more, all in the livery of the Elite Guards, all eager to take on the Last Hero Standing, but their heat rays and swift, grasping tentacles each shot out to no effect. Even when by some mischance a heat ray struck him, he’d already twisted so that it struck his last ace in the hole: the shield of Captain America, worn by the Hero on his back. Now as ever, the shield proved its inviolability, the heat rays deflecting harmlessly from it. And now, as ever, not one tentacle got close to him unless he so desired.

The fight raged on ferociously for hours, but the Martians used machines, and the Hero was only flesh and blood, so, eventually, after destroying what seemed like the 5,000th tripod to attack him, a quick-moving tentacle smashed against his helmet with the force of a blow from Mjolnir, and the world spun into darkness...

He opened his eyes with a hoarse cry and tried to sit up, only to find himself being held down by immensely strong hands that belonged to... Flash Thompson? Harry Osborn? And Betty Brant? “It’s OK, Pete,” he heard one of them say, and then the darkness took him again.

\--

The Survivor’s Lair  
Miles Away

Deep within his deathly silent, labyrinthine redoubt, in a grey-draped chamber far indeed from those he observed, the Survivor watched the heroes as they clustered around their erstwhile comrade, and his lips twitched. It would be too much to say that he actually smiled: all of his store of smiles had been obliterated with the rest of his world on Judgement Day; but he came closer than he had in a very long time.

And why shouldn’t he be pleased? the Survivor thought. The Procedure had worked marvelously, yielding results far beyond even his wildest hopes. Yes, so far, everything had gone... perfectly. Now, it was up to him to carry out the rest of the Plan. He took a few moments to contemplate, considering the best avenues of approach, and what alteration the more-than-optimal results of the Procedure might enable (or even necessitate) in the Plan.

Of course, the implementation would have to wait until the latest arrival was up and kicking, the Survivor thought, turning back to the rows of displays that imaged his unwitting guests, but even with that less than predictable delay, success was--must be--imminent. Yes. He could not permit disaster to follow such rousing success.

And on that note, he should have some nutri-toast. Wheat flavored nutri-toast, he decided, and slathered with butter substitute, as a modest celebratory excess. After all, were he to fall ill of malnourishment, who would implement the Plan?

\--

Authority Grey Fleet Ship Z9M9Z  
Patrolling Deep Space in the Neighborhood of Planet CNOC-355717

The Authority. They had a much more verbose name in “official-ese”, but everyone, including their own members, referred to them simply as the Authority. In brief, their brief was to “maintain internal security” (sometimes “ensure domestic tranquility”) within Human Space, by any means necessary. And they used “any means” they desired, or sometimes whatever was available, which just fed into the general aura of omnipresence, omnipotence and infallibility they cultivated in the public consciousness.

The ship itself was utterly expendable, as were the company and crew, and even the entire Grey Fleet, should it come to that. The Authority was one of the most sadistic and vicious organizations made by Man, but they were also quite selfless when their brief was jeopardized. It was one of the last lingering remnants of nobility they promulgated.

The Red Queen utterly despised the rigid, inflexible, spit-and-polish, attention-to-orders Authority, but even she had to admit that they made for excellent servants, when properly managed. Of course, there was another, secret group in this reality that made for even better tools, but the Red Queen was currently dealing with the Authority more or less exclusively. The one great advantage to that was that high-level members in the Authority were expected to have secrets within secrets and plans within plans, so nothing she inquired about, remarked upon, or ordered done would arouse suspicion in anyone.

\--

The Surface of Planet CNOC-355717  
1.7 kilometers beyond the colonial boundary  
1327 hours local

The heat rose from the open ground in the clearing in thick waves of distortion, prompting most of the fauna to seek shelter; yet there was one close by for whom it was still quite cool. In fact, to him this was nearly ideal weather for a hunt, and he was well embarked upon one.

The Hunter watched from a nearby branch as his brobdingnagian prey calmly browsed through the underbrush, pausing every so often to nibble a tasty morsel here and there. Bah. The only measure of challenge in this pitiful excuse for a hunt came from the creature’s sheer size, and even that was deceptive: for all its apparent bulk, the creature was mostly blubber; there was barely enough true meat on it for a single meal, though the skull should make a fine addition to his trophies.

After another moment of watching the utterly placid creature graze, the Hunter decided to put an end to the game. Activating his plasma caster’s targeting system, he aimed the targeting triangle for where he thought the beast’s most vulnerable point to lie, the warmest point on its hide, hoping to down it with one shot. Artistry would substitute for sport today, perforce. The Hunter prepared to fire... and immediately found himself battling for his life.

A dark, brawny form collided with the Hunter’s, knocking him from his perch and severing his caster. Somehow, the brute had been swift and silent enough not to alert the Hunter to its presence, and now it proved agile enough to land on its feet close to where the Hunter had. The Hunter cackled gleefully. Some proper sport, at last!

The Hunter flipped through his helmet’s array of spectral viewing modes, trying to find the best image of his foe. UV proved most suitable, showing the Hunter a worthy adversary.

With disc, spear and blade; with claws, tendrils and teeth; and finally with hammer blow after hammer blow, the battle raged, neither combatant backing down even for a moment. Such a battle as this was would be the stuff of legend, could any other have been witness to it and lived. Finally, only one figure remained upright amidst the devastation. Glancing down at its fallen foe, it--no, they spoke, with the Voice of Legion: “The innocent must be protected.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dramatis Personae_ (in order of appearance):
> 
> Peter Benjamin Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (from the reality designated _Earth-691_ , where Earth was invaded a la H.G. Wells’ _The War of the Worlds_ ca 2001)  
>  Various Martians (same)  
> Eugene “Flash” Thompson (from a different reality than anyone else)  
> Harold Norman “Harry” Osborn (from a different reality than anyone else)  
> Elizabeth “Betty” Brant (from a different reality than anyone else)  
> (OC) The Survivor... of whom more shall be forthcoming  
> (OC) The Red Queen... of whom more will be revealed later  
> The Hunter, a Predator (from the Predator movie series)  
> His Unnamed (as yet) Adversary (SPOILER)


End file.
